For most of wine's recorded history the container was fired clay rather than wood or glass. The properties of that material shaped both the trade and the wine inside it.
Clay is porous and had to be sealed
Fired earthenware admits liquid slowly through its walls, so amphorae were lined internally with pine resin or pitch to make them watertight. Without that treatment a full vessel would seep continuously.
The lining was not neutral, and resinated flavour entered the wine as a matter of course rather than as a choice. Ancient writers discuss it as a normal characteristic of the drink.
The practice survives deliberately in some regional styles, where a resin character that was once unavoidable is now the defining feature.
The shape was designed for ships
The pointed base of a classical amphora looks impractical on a floor and makes sense in a hold, where vessels were stacked in sand or in racks and braced against each other.
The narrow neck limited the surface exposed to air and allowed a tight seal with clay or cork stoppers.
Handles at the shoulder let two people move a full vessel, which set the practical maximum size for the format.
Buried vessels controlled temperature
Where amphorae were used for fermentation and ageing rather than transport, they were commonly buried to the neck in the ground.
The surrounding earth held a stable cool temperature, which moderated fermentation in a period with no other means of cooling.
This tradition continued unbroken in parts of the Caucasus, where large buried vessels remain in working use for the same reason.
Wood displaced clay for practical reasons
Barrels are lighter for their capacity, can be rolled by one person and survive impacts that shatter a clay vessel. On a wagon or a quayside that difference is decisive.
They could also be built much larger without becoming unmanageable. A cooper could repair a damaged barrel by replacing staves, whereas a cracked amphora was simply finished.
The transition was driven by handling and durability rather than by any preference for oak flavour, which was a later discovery.
Why the format returned
Modern producers using clay are pursuing a vessel that permits slow oxygen exchange without adding wood-derived flavour.
Unlined or lightly lined vessels sit between stainless steel and barrel in that respect, which is a position nothing else occupies.
The revival is small in volume and disproportionately visible, since the shape carries an immediate historical association that a tank does not.